One of my students had to go to the hospital for an emergency operation two days ago. It was the kind of thing that if you had insurance, you would have gotten checked out before it got bad, but he doesn't and he didn't. He came into school this morning, looking awful; he could barely walk, and was clearly in a lot of pain. He came in because he needed to get something from our case manager, I"m not sure what. Someone said "Why is he out of the hospital?" (it was clear he shouldn't have been). Someone else said, "They kick you out early when you don't have insurance. It's called Short Term Stay now." This kid is 19. He does not have a supportive family member to take care of him at home.

I want to say to anyone who's reading out there that when the Republicans talk about "personal responsibility" and how we need to cut "entitlement programs," or how the poor are just lazy, this is who they're talking about. My 19 year old student trying to get himself around by himself two days after a major operation. It sounds good, all that stuff about being independent, but when you run a society on the idea that no one deserves help but those who already don't need it, this is what it looks like. It's brutal. It's not patriotic or job creating or independent or Christian-it's just ugly. It's ugly the same way going into the nursery and kicking newborns in the face would be ugly. It's inexcusable. This is why I support Occupation Wall Street, and why I'll be joining my local occupation this weekend. When they talk about cutting "entitlement" programs, this is what they're talking about. Teenagers. Human lives. People who didn't ever have a choice about what family they were born to. It's not OK.
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I'm a Jewish progressive who is really angry about racism and the uses and misuses of American history. I have a Ph.D and am currently in a Masters program for Library Science. I read a lot.
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